Straight Dope Message Board

[Guinastasia]

All right, in my cupboard downstairs is a box of red velvet cake mix from Duncan Hines. I've never had a red velvet cake, and I was wondering, what kind of icing should I use (make or buy, depending) with it? The icing in the picture on the box is white-would that mean a cream cheese frosting?

Thanks!

[Telperien]

Cream cheese is the only kind of icing that I've ever known to be on red velvet cakes. It's my personal favorite and the only kind I would put on one unless someone specifically asked for a different kind.

[Marlitharn]

I, on the other hand, have never heard of cream cheese frosting on a red velvet cake. I've always had it with butter frosting, and I think I read somewhere that butter frosting is traditional.

[Cunctator]

I've never heard of a red velvet cake. Is it just a normal sponge cake with red food colouring? Or does it have a special taste?

[Clockwork And Candy]

Originally Posted by Cunctator

I've never heard of a red velvet cake. Is it just a normal sponge cake with red food colouring? Or does it have a special taste?

Close. Red velvet cake is a dense chocolate cake with red colouring. Nothing special about it.

And in regards to the OP, a red velvet cake requires an amaretto icing. Or at least that's how my Mum always made it.

[Sierra Indigo]

Originally Posted by Cunctator

I've never heard of a red velvet cake. Is it just a normal sponge cake with red food colouring? Or does it have a special taste?

Woolies are selling them at the moment. At least they are in Adelaide. They're these bright red cakes that look kind of nifty, taste vaguely sweet and have that disgusting cream cheese icing on. They're not as good as an actual mud cake.

[Cunctator]

Originally Posted by Sierra Indigo

Woolies are selling them at the moment.

I must have a look when I'm next there.

Originally Posted by Sierra Indigo

They're these bright red cakes that look kind of nifty, taste vaguely sweet and have that disgusting cream cheese icing on. They're not as good as an actual mud cake.

They don't sound all that enticing.

[Sierra Indigo]

Originally Posted by Cunctator

They don't sound all that enticing.

It may just be down to Woolies hamfisted bakery practises, but I really didn't find the one I had all that nice. YMMV though, and they're about $3 so they're not going to break the bank.

[Martin Hyde]

Cream cheese icing is what my mother always used, usually with crushed up pecans on it.

[Askia]

Originally Posted by Sierra Indigo

Woolies are selling them at the moment. At least they are in Adelaide. They're these bright red cakes that look kind of nifty, taste vaguely sweet and have that disgusting cream cheese icing on. They're not as good as an actual mud cake.

This used to be my opinion of red velevet cakes until fourteen years ago, my college buddy's girlfriend's mother sent her what remains the best made from scratch red velvet cake I've ever tasted. SOooOOOooo moist. SOoooOOo tasty. SOoooOOoo good. Religions could have been launched over that cake. Hell, jihads could have been launched over that cake. The main failing of every red velvet cake I've eaten since is that it tastes like -- well -- bright red dye.

For the record Andrea's mom used a homemade cream cheese icing.

[amarinth]

I prefer buttercream, but they come more often with cream cheese.

Must be white - whatever it is. Otherwise, it just looks wrong in the wrong way, rather than wrong in the right way.

I've been looking for a mix (off and on, when it comes to mind, so much more "off" than "on") and have never found one. I'm too lazy to do it from scratch.

[SkeptiJess]

The original recipe, circulated in the '50s and '60s as a Neiman-Marcus Cookie type urban legend, had a kind of weird cooked frosting that used flour in the recipe. No cream cheese, but it made a thick, pretty frosting that I remember (I haven't made this cake in years) as being very good.

The cake was known then as Waldorf-Astoria Cake, because it was supposed to be the Waldorf-Astoria that stiffed the customer with the recipe. I wish I still had the mimeographed sheet with the story on it that my mom got in the '60s, but it was the familiar urban legend -- a lady asked for the recipe, was told it would cost her 'three-fifty,' which she interpreted as $3.50. When her bill came she had been charged $350.00 and she printed out the recipe and gave it to eveyone she knew in order to get back at them. Eventually, this story with the cake, morphed into the version with the cookies.

Anyway, here is the original recipe for the frosting (I don't have the original mimeographed sheet, but Mom did save the recipe):

1/4 C flour
1 C. milk
1 C. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C. Crisco
1/2 C. butter
Cook milk and flour til thick. Let cool. Meanwhile, beat the Crisco and butter until they are ligth and fluffy. Add (completely cool) milk & flour mixture and vanilla. beat until thick and fluffy.

If you feel like making a scratch frosting, I'd give this one a try for the authenticity (and, as I said before, I remember it as being pretty good). But to tell you the truth, almost all Red Velvet Cakes I've been served since my childhood have been frosted with Cream Cheese Frosting, so if you prefer that, go ahead and use it.

[StuffLikeThatThere]

Real red velvet cake is wonderful. Red velvet cake from a box is not. I'm not set against mixes as a whole, but sometimes it's worth baking from scratch, and this is one of those times. The scratch recipe with cocoa and buttermilk and vinegar is the only way to go.

Then, when you have red velvet cake worth killing someone for, ice it with a double recipe of the homemade cooked icing that uses flour and butter. It's killer.

But if you insist on using the mix, cream cheese icing would probably be fine.

[freckafree]

Jess, your mom's icing recipe is what I remember my mom making. (And it seems to me Mom put the cake in the fridge after it was iced.)

[WhyNot]

Jess's recipe is very similar to my great-grandmother's (except our uses all butter instead of Crisco) and it's very, very good. If you haven't had an old-fashioned cooked frosting, I recommend trying it. It's what those little plastic tubs are trying to be but fail miserably. And yes, a real buttercream frosting should be refrigerated so it doesn't get funky.

Two words of warning: when it says cool completely before adding the next step, it means completely. Chilled is even better. Otherwise the fat just melts in and won't whip fluffy.

Second, use only bleached flour and regular white sugar. I tried it once with unbleached flour and organic, still kinda brownish sugar, and it turned out a disguting grey. Even food coloring wasn't able to save it. Since it was for my sons birthday, I just turned it into a gross-out cake with worms and stuff, but it was seriously nasty looking!

[DeVena]

Ahem. It's not so much an Icing, but a reason to live.

DEVENA'S MOMMA'S RED VELVET CAKE

1 c Crisco (or 2 sticks butter)
1½ c sugar
2 eggs
1 T cocoa
2½ c plain flour
½ t salt
1 t soda
1 oz bottle red food coloring (Yep. That says BOTTLE.)
1 t vinegar
1 t vanilla
1 c buttermilk

Filling:
1 stick butter, softened
1 box powdered sugar
8 oz cream cheese
1 t vanilla
1 c chopped nuts

Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs and beat well. Combine cocoa, flour, salt and soda; sift together. Put food coloring in a cup, add vinegar and mix well. Add to sugar mixture. Mix well. Add vanilla and buttermilk. Gradually add flour mixture to this. Beat well.

Bake at 350º – 30 - 35 minutes until it pulls away from the sides of the pan. Makes 3 layers.

Mix together butter, sugar, cream cheese, vanilla and nuts while the cake cools. If the mixture is too stiff, add water. Spread filling between cake layers, if you can get it out of my hands.

[DeVena]

Oh and DeMomma says that her Momma finished the cake by coving it with Jess's cooked icing. But she didn't like it, which is why that never got used in her house. I just love old recipes like this. Every one's just a little bit different!

[Nightingale]

Originally Posted by DeVena

Ahem. It's not so much an Icing, but a reason to live.

DEVENA'S MOMMA'S RED VELVET CAKE

(snip)

Filling:
1 stick butter, softened
1 box powdered sugar
8 oz cream cheese
1 t vanilla
1 c chopped nuts


(snip)


Mix together butter, sugar, cream cheese, vanilla and nuts while the cake cools. If the mixture is too stiff, add water. Spread filling between cake layers, if you can get it out of my hands.

My momma uses this delicious recipe, too, but we add an extra block of cream cheese to make it less sweet. If "too sweet" is your complaint about cream cheese frosting, you might try that. It's divine.

[SkeptiJess]

Yes -- I should have mentioned that the 'old-style' frosting should be refrigerated. It said that on the recipe (although I don't remember it being refrigerated when my mom used to make it -- probably because it didn't last long enough for any to be left over!)

Now I'm all hungry for this. Today is my brithday and, if this thread had come up just a day or two earlier, I'd have asked my mom to make this for my dinner tonight...

It's just as well, though -- she's been haivng trouble with her legs lately, so I just asked her to make cupcakes instead and told her to use a mix and tub frosting. I wouldn't want her standing so long to whip up the good stuff. Her birthday is in January, maybe I'll make an old-style Red Velvet Cake for that.

[Guinastasia]

Thanks. I looked it up, and it appears that cream cheese is the main favorite. So I'm just going to buy some, since this is just a "try it and see if I like it" cake. Plus I'm not fussy-even store bought icing is good. (I love icing).

My mother does have a to-die-for recipe for buttercream icing she got from a neighbor years ago, but I'll be damned if I'm going to try to adapt it to make cream cheese icing. Oh well.

I'll let yinz know how it turns out (I plan on making it later this week). Hopefully I'll be able to find the two round flat cake pans so I can make a layer cake.

[zweisamkeit]

Originally Posted by Guinastasia

Thanks. I looked it up, and it appears that cream cheese is the main favorite. So I'm just going to buy some, since this is just a "try it and see if I like it" cake. Plus I'm not fussy-even store bought icing is good. (I love icing).

Ewww. I just don't see the point in seeing if you like a type of cake (devil's food, red velvet, what have you) by making it from a box and buying the frosting. That's like seeing if you like mashed potatoes (which can be delicious with milk and butter and everything all smashy) by using freeze dried potato flakes, powdered milk and butter buds.